Monday, April 11, 2011

The UWA Art Challenge inspires me to further certain projects on my sim ACC Alpha. I decided to make a piece of sculpture with a practical use for the April 2011 contest. The piece titled “History in Cream” forms a section of the main entrance of the House of ACCentaury. It is an old structure which has undergone a series of remodels. As such, the building is perpetually a work in progress. The same applies to the seasonal landscape, which nurtures a rolling field of flowers and bamboo leading up to the House.

ACC Alphabet of Prims on the sail of the boat.

A narrative based on centaurs is spontaneously emerging across the ACC Alpha sim, and so they naturally figure into this new composition. As the artwork and writings encourage one another, the centaur becomes a ubiquitous element of the sim. The developing ACC Alphabet of Prims is the written code of these inhabitants. It is built with SL prims to form the alphabet and the hieroglyphs of the script. Described on the sail held in the hands of the centaurs is the dedication of arrival to ACC Alpha from Sparquerry. The texture with the text is shiny and crisp for the reason that it represents language. Unlike corrosion which over time eats into buildings, the ideas of language do not tarnish... or so a legend bases its hopes.

A painter and ceramist in real life, I import examples of my work into SL. Most often, this entails making modifications via Photoshop until the desired effect is achieved. The compositions are most frequently my own, though I occasionally borrow ideas from other artists. In this piece for example, I included a wobbly village scape that is influenced by the artist Soutine. It’s a sketch I did in pastels and charcoal a few years ago. Along with that, I collage textures from my sketch pad that fit the theme. Now an exciting challenge begins: figuring out in 3 dimensions where the shadows fall per the centaurs’ body positions, and factoring in the play of light cast onto the assemblage of characters and props. The texture on the accordion wall and the floor have undergone many transformations. Just as an artist spends many sessions applying layers of paint onto the canvas while composing a painting, the process I used for this piece is quite similar. After applying a texture to the 3d sculpture, I assess its effectiveness, and determine what else is needed. I go back and forth between Photoshop and SL until the effect is complete.

You may take out of the imagery whatever comes to mind. There is no specifically assigned determinant. The architecture of the House of ACCentaury is deconstructive in nature. The clotted painting is literally leaking from the panels onto the ground, soaking the hooves of the centaurs in the very painting for which they belong. In contrast, the back of the sculpture reveals a clean, smooth translucency. This sets off the silhouettes of the centaurs, as were they the inked words on a page of a history book. On site in ACC Alpha, they frame the Southern border of the color saturated Otter Quilt fields. To the North is the ancient darkened colonnade of ACC Builds, which additionally situates the centaurs into context.The process of history, the juices of its conquest, the passing of stories... these are the routes of exploration my centaurs must virtually travel. They assimilate the motif of history.